The Biggest Money Mistake Women Make (And How to Avoid It) Ft. Zarna & Zoya Garg

My mom had passed suddenly. I was almost 15 at the time. My dad was like, I'm done parenting. You need to get married. That does something to your psychology. I was a matchmaker for a minute. Horrible. I had a vegan chili business. Okay. Total disaster. I had a disposable toothbrush product that I had kind of invented and total flop. I lived in New York 25 years and I didn't know what standup comedy was. I was at ground zero. I had to like wake up and build from ground zero overnight. And it was a mistake. What was I thinking for the 15 years before? What's up, rich friends? Welcome back to another episode of Net Worth and Chill with me, your host, Vivian Tu, aka your rich BFF and your favorite Wall Street girly. Like most Americans, I turned 18, picked a college, then a major, and basically assumed that I was going to work that job that I got out of school for the next 40 years of my life until retirement. That's the dream, right? Not quite. No one tells you that you can pivot, evolve, and completely reinvent yourself at any age and that the timeline we're sold is honestly kind of BS. But here's the thing, reinventing yourself at 40, that's kind of terrifying. Building a whole new career from scratch when you're supposed to be settled with a 401k and a sensible sedan, that takes serious guts and financial courage. For so long, we've been told there's one timeline for success, one safe path to follow one narrow window to make your big move. But today's guest said, nah, it's never too late and proved that your 40s can just be the beginning of something incredible. From Mumbai to Ohio, from lawyer to matchmaking entrepreneur to selling out comedy shows across the country, she's turned her unfiltered truth-telling into Hulu specials, a best-selling memoir, and tours with comedy legends like Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. And her daughter? She's been right there watching, learning, and building her own path in the process. So everyone, please welcome the hilarious, inspiring, and brutally honest mother-daughter duo, Zarna and Zoya Garg. Yay! Thank you so much for having us. So excited to be here. We are going to have so much fun. We are going to have such a great conversation. But before we get into the hard-hitting questions, I'm going to ask a mom-daughter question. Yeah. Have you two ever gotten into a serious argument about money or a financial decision, and how did you resolve it? When the political winds change, will there be accountability for those who bent the knee for the Trump administration? If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back in power, are going to play by the old rules and say, oh, never mind, we'll forgive you. I think they've got another thing coming. I'm Preet Bharara. And this week, Ambassador Susan Rice joins me to discuss leadership, decision making and the state of the rule of law in America. The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay Tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts. Every day. Yes. Every day we fight about money. Okay, but like what? It is currently unresolved. We recently fought about whether or not it makes more sense to invest in berries every day versus a very expensive bag. What's your take? She spends a lot of money on food, like inordinate amounts. Yes, I do. But I think it's a healthy investment. The most expensive food known to man. What are you eating? I'm eating organic berries every day. And entire boxes. Like not two berries. The whole thing. I do. Okay. I'm going to be honest. And then there is the matcha. But she buys a very expensive Hermes bag, which she then shows off on her Instagram. And she's showing off at these events. And so we actually got into a giant disagreement on live stream where we talked about, is it better to spend money on berries every single day? Or is it a better investment to buy a very expensive bag? I'm going to be entirely honest. When you first said berries, my immediate thought was that Zoya was going to berries boot camp every morning. Oh, well, that's also that. Okay, all right. There's also that. I'm all of those. I'm all of the above. It's all the health thing, every boot camp, what is it, yoga, heart yoga, the goat yoga, the whole thing. Goat yoga, I would never do. That's not serious enough. Oh, okay. Okay. So here's my take. And I think it's, there's no wrong answer. However, I do think this very much shows a generational divide. I feel like our parents were very much like, oh, if I save up for something, it's like one big thing that they really get to enjoy. Like my mom also loves a designer bag. But I prefer to spend on experiences and daily lifestyle. Your mom is so mad at me right now. You and I are so wise. I was like, first of all, there is a right answer. You guys are wrong. Okay. Okay, okay. That's the right answer. You can blink twice. Okay. It's not an experience to eat every day. I mean, what have you guys done? Okay, well, so here's my question. What's wrong with the berries at Costco? Could you get like a massive thing of berries? To me, it's just wherever I can practically pick up a carton of berries, I will go. So that typically ends up being like the local grocery store, which is much more expensive. I'm not good about planning ahead. That's an issue. It is hard. It is hard. No, that's an issue. And it's not that hard. But when you're single or if you're living by yourself, shopping for groceries can be just as expensive as going out to eat. Well, it's not just groceries now. It's DoorDash. I spend on food delivery so much. But I think it actually weighs out to be more. Because in time, imagine how much time I'm saving, right? Well, also, I buy the bag, right? Yeah. And then she borrows it. Right. Oh, okay. So somehow. Zoya, please. We're getting the berries and the bag. Like, what is happening? Do you understand what I'm saying? It's called negotiation. Okay. You know what, Zoya? I'm actually going to have to side with mom for this one. Because you didn't tell me that you were coincidentally borrowing the bag. I mean. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. But the thing is that there are everyday disagreements. Yes. We work together. And there's going to be, of course, there's disagreements. You can't agree all the time. You're not running a business then. Yeah. Yeah, and allocating funds is really challenging for us. One thing that we've constantly negotiated about recently is should we get an office? Right now, we work all over the place. We're working in cars. We're working in airplanes. We're working in hotel rooms. And a large proportion of the business is live touring shows. So does it make sense for us to invest in an office where we're only going to be there maybe once a month? I don't know. Yeah, and it's a constant because we have a team and like, you know. Who wants the office and who doesn't? I want the office because I want, but upon reflection, I want the office for legitimacy, not for reasons of practicality. Yeah. Whereas she understands it's not practical and we don't need it. Yeah. I think the happy medium here is, so I actually, my whole team works out of my apartment. So. See? See that? But I will say this. If you are looking for legitimacy or filming content in an office setting, you can just rent a peer space for an afternoon, get all of that content in the office, and it'll be a much nicer office than one you could actually, you know, want to spend on rent. Yeah. And then the rest of the time, work out of your apartment. So do you think an office is overrated? I do. Wow. Because the office that I would be able to get in a location that is convenient for all of my employees would be much less nice than them just coming to my apartment. Totally. And it's more money spent. Right. And it's funny. And also, I assume that you also travel a lot. A lot. And then, see, I made some of these mistakes. We used to have a house outside the city. You know, we made these mistakes. When you tie yourself to rent or to mortgage, there's a guilt. Oh, now you're going to this third place. You're living here. You're paying for that. You're paying for the office. And now you're at this third place trying to, like, set up the whole thing all over again anyway. And the reality of working today in 2025 is that you have to be on the go. You just have to. There's no negotiating that. So what will we do with an office? It'll just sit there. Yeah. I'm sorry this has so far turned into a lecture for Zoya. No, I actually really appreciate the perspective because I think when you are doing something unconventional, especially when you're young, you're looking for ways to make it make sense. Right. And an office feels like one of those ways that it just makes and makes sense, but not necessarily something that really meaningfully helps the business. So it's interesting. It's glamorized. And also Hollywood as a habit. Like if you see working people, they show beautiful offices. Yes, with an elevator door. But it's a studio. That's how they shoot in one space. Yes, exactly. They cannot actually afford to take a camera with you everywhere they go. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I want to talk a little bit about, Zarna, your comedy career. You famously started it at age 40 after practicing. 44. Yeah. After practicing law for two decades. No, actually, I was. I practiced law for a little bit and then I was a stay-at-home mom for 16 years. Oh, OK. I was so bad at practicing law. I was horrible at it. I mean, at one point, all my clients were in jail. That was a sign. No! Yes, that was a sign. I was like, you know what? I should get out of this before I end up in there with them. In jail, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then I decided, you know, my husband had a good job on Wall Street. And I was like, you know what? I'll support him. I thought I would be a lady who lunches. Yeah. You know, but 16 years of being home with the kids full time, I was like, I'm not that into them. Okay, cool. You're like, I'm trying to get back into my own thing. Yeah. But talk to me about the conversation you had with your husband when you were deciding to pursue comedy. Because certainly it's not an industry known for being ultra high paying for everybody, right? It's like the very few people. For nobody. A few people at the top. Even they don't really make money in comedy. You have to leverage out of the comedy. You know, you have to generally. Yeah. Look, my husband was very supportive because before I found comedy, I had tried like 15, 20 businesses that all failed. What were some of them? I was a matchmaker for a minute. Horrible. Real professional matchmaker. I'm not making this up. Horrible. I had a vegan chili business. Okay. Total disaster. Then what was the other thing? Toothbrush. Toothbrush. I had a disposable toothbrush product that I had kind of invented and total flop. So my husband was kind of like being supportive. And he thought this comedy thing, you know, it's like, all right, let her try it. It's going to come and go. Nobody expected it to become what it became except her, actually. I knew. Wait, what gave you such faith in your mom? So when I was 14, 15, 16, that was when she was trying all these different businesses. And we were always really close. I would say where the people often make us out to be like the awkward Gilmore girls, like the nerdy Gilmore girl mom and daughter. We've gotten that comment a lot where I'm obsessed with her and she's trying to run away from me. She's like, go find your friends. And so I would constantly be following her around wherever she would go. And when she was starting all of these businesses, I noticed that the reason why people would buy her products or services was because she would make them feel so good. She would stand in front of them. She would make them laugh. She would tell stories. She would start spewing all this ranting about, oh, my daughter's annoying me. My mother-in-law's calling all of these different things. She's got the riz. She was just rizzing these customers up in front of me. And that's why they would buy. And I grew up in New York City. I grew up in the heart of standup. I would watch Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. And I was so enriched in that culture, I saw a business there. I was like, you can actually monetize your personality. This was also when social media was rising on its own occasion, which is obviously such a ginormous part of her business. She was actually recently named one of Instagram's top 25 creators. Actually, three days ago, she got a gold ring to award her original creativity. It's wild. It's been eight years, but it was there from the start. Yeah, so he didn't, coming back to my husband, when I said I want to try comedy, he's like, yeah, sure. No one thought anything of it. And to his defense, comedy is not a career in India, right? Like, it's not a career. You can't be a jester as a career. That's not a career. Engineer, lawyer, doctor, lawyer maybe. Yeah. Well, also, we're just not a culture that prioritizes fun at all. Yeah. Comedy is like, you go out to have fun. I have people now, they're like, who are all these people who buy tickets to your show? They don't understand it. Indian people, Asian people. Yeah. We don't have that in our culture, that entertainment piece. Like, did you grow up going to plays? No. Did you grow up watching movies? No. Like, maybe movies at home because it's easy. And it's free. And the movies were all intense movies. Yeah. Yes. A message. Like, my dad and I were watching, like, Goodfellas and, like, the Shawshank Redemption. Exactly. And I'm like, what am I watching this? No, truly not. That makes sense. I mean, my kids, they're all born and raised in Manhattan. This is a true fact. We've never bought Broadway tickets. Ever. Ever. Ever. We've never gone to a sporting game where we bought tickets. Now we get some, we get invitations. Yeah, invites. And I've taken my sons. But we've never bought tickets to these things. No. We stay far, far away from all that pop culture stuff. Can I tell you, some of the first, like, sporting, like, concert, like, all of those things that I did those for the first time were with white people who took me. Yeah. Because I have never personally thought in my mind, ooh, I should go to this. Yeah. It's just not part of our culture. Yeah. And I don't even let my kids go. Like my kids friends parents will be like oh for you know whatever Jake birthday we going to take the kids here I like you never going to be friends with Jake This is the end of this friendship And even her comedy show we only allowed to go to her comedy show because we working And we're learning. Her comedy show is like you get lectured in that show. It's not like some jokesing show. You're not going to anyone else's show. Right. Okay. Oh, my gosh. That's so funny. And to take it back, we talk about culture, being Indian. You immigrated to America from Mumbai. You started your life in Ohio. Yes. Ohio. What made you want to make the leap to America? What was your financial situation when you first arrived? I mean, very complicated set of circumstances brought me to America. My mom had passed suddenly. I was almost 15 at the time. And my dad, I was the youngest of four kids. My dad was like, I'm done parenting. You need to get married. And it sounds jarring in America, but it's actually not that big of a deal back home. 15 is a little early even for India, but not that. Like all my siblings were married by their late teens. So we were talking, you know, it was we were off by about a year or two at most. And my dad didn't see much with it. He was like, you know, I was the fourth kid. He was fed up. Yeah. And I get it. I have three kids. I now do wonder what I would be like if I had a fourth. Right. It's exhausting. It is exhausting. So I get it. I never held it against my dad. but he was not he was very clear that if I didn't want to get married I couldn't live at home okay and I had a sister who lived in Ohio who was married and lived in Ohio who offered to take me in which is how I ended up that's really nice uh but of course I had no money of course I was indebted to her for years for years she because I left and my dad was really upset and you know Asian dads, they're not playing. No, no, no. They'll ice you out. Yeah. It's over. Like, I was dead to him. He said, all right, you want to go do this adventure thing with your sister? That's on you. So I came to America. My sister paid for my college, my life, my law school. Wow. And it's a debt that I owe her for life. And thank God for rich relatives. Yeah, thank God for our rich sister. Yeah. And, you know, of course, I've settled it in my own way. But she hates when I talk about it. She hates when I talk about it because she doesn't like the idea that I think of it as a debt. We're very Indian. We're very Asian that way. We're siblings. We're there for each other no matter what. It's like there's a Korean phrase. I'm Chinese, but there's a Korean phrase that they said in Squid Games. It's like there's no ownership between us. Yeah, exactly. And she truly believes it. I don't. I don't. For clarity, I'm like, no, this is mine. This jacket is mine. This shoe is mine. But she is very much of that mindset. So it was a very stressful time. You know, but when you're taking, here's the thing. I live in New York now and I live a fairly affluent life. I mean, nobody is truly affluent in New York. You know, even the billionaires feel poor. Yeah, we know. But I've been to a lot of charity events as a lot of us are philanthropic things. I think often in those rooms, I am one of the only people who's received charity. So because in my case, my sister was like being very charitable, supporting me for years and years. And that does something to your psychology. When you receive charity, it like strips you of your self-esteem in a way that that's very hard to explain. It's like it also fires you up in a way that you're trying to get out of these circumstances as fast as possible. Because in your mind, you're a burden on everybody around you. You know, she's not my parent. She had no obligation to do any of it, but she chose to. So it was a very, very complicated few years. But honestly, Ohio was so kind to me. I had the best time. I had the best time. Ohio's whatever phrase in America is the heart of it all because it's a heart shape. Yeah. And it truly was a heartbeat for me. Oh, we love Ohio. Yeah. Also, you mentioned that like your sister had this very like immigrant culture mentality of like, I'm going to take care of my sister no matter what. But you made a joke just now that you don't really have that mentality. You're like, no, no, no, it's mine. This is yours. We are separate. Is that a joke? Or do you truly feel like you've kind of kicked that immigrant mentality? It doesn't come naturally to me the way it does to her. She literally is that generous soul who will be like, you want my car? Oh, sure, take it. Me, I'll be like, you know, I'll resist it and be like, okay, it's my sister. I'm supposed to be good to her, you know. So I've definitely crossed over into being American. I've been here 30 plus years now. So it doesn't come as naturally to me. I have to talk my head into like, I'm Indian. We're supposed to like this. They're supposed to feel good. Well, I guess then my question is for Zoya, like, do you feel like growing up with an immigrant parent, being first gen, you know, here for like, you know, American your entire life. How do you feel like your perspective on money differs versus your parents? It's time to level the up. I'm Robin Arson and I light fires. I'm an executive founder, bestselling author, ultra marathoner, mother, proud Latina, and I'm not done yet. Announcing Project Swagger, my new weekly podcast, Your Transformation Toolkit. I'm going to cut through the noise and give you actionable takeaways each week in under 30 minutes. Elevate your hustle with routines, strategies, and mindset shifts that I have pressure tested. I have burnt down this Beyonce candle like all the way to the bottom. We have been trying to manifest. Carves are not the enemy. I probably have a piece of bread or a bagel with me at all times, and I am not exaggerating. Tune in on February 24th for episode one, Building the Skill of Self-Talk. This is the foundation. Follow Project Swagger wherever you get your podcasts. Let's go. Yeah, I mean, I grew up feeling like money was very individualistic. And also building a career was very individualistic. Most of the people who I went to school with were so flabbergasted by this idea that we were working together and that her money was my money and that the business's money was something that we shared. because I think America profits off of siloing people off and basically making it feel like if you don't earn your own individual salary, if you're not doing everything yourself, you're doing something almost wrong. And so I constantly was, from a very young age, battling between these ideas of like what's mine, what's hers, what's allowed to be shared, how individual do I have to be? now it was because of my American attitude towards things that I was very demanding of her getting paid very early on yeah everything about her business as a comedian has been very well thought out of like what are the margins how much are we going to sell this ticket for how much is it going to cost to produce a video in order to like market this show and it's always been very economical from the very beginning because you know that's that's how we were both we were both thinking about that she actually comes from a very business oriented family too so um yeah yeah and i think um we've learned that the more we band together as a family the more profitable we are as a unit yeah that economies of scale yes and also we leverage from each other's strengths like there's a natural give and take that is there's a there's a shorthand that you may have with your family that you just can't have with anybody else. Right. This is not to say that you can't build with other people. It just so happens in our case that it's the family. And I, you know, I'm always telling her, I have a son in college that if you want to do something else, do that. Like, that's fine. But it's got to make sense. It's got to compete with what we're building here. Yes. Yeah. Don't do it just so you can say I'm doing it on my own. You don't owe that to anybody yeah yeah that's over glamorized in america in my opinion yeah like that we all each have our own house own car we drive to and from each way we don't carpool we do like it's just very like that lifestyle has not served women no look at look at all the women they're like that what it does is that because we don't pool resources it puts a crushing burden on each woman yeah now each woman is running a household now each woman is buying grocery 80 of which we're all throwing out let's be honest yeah you know because who can eat that each woman is like trying to figure out how to take care of their own one kid like there's no economies of scale that makes no sense i had this conversation with a girlfriend who is a mother of two the other day and she was like we literally realized that instead of me picking up my kid every single day from school i could only pick up my kid and a couple other kids yeah once a week and then each day would be assigned to a different parent. And that way, the other four days, we could relax. Yeah, exactly. And use that time more efficiently. Yeah, 100%. Exactly. Exactly. But that's not the story they tell in America. I think the pendulum swung too far towards independence. 100%. And the thing is that it didn't serve women. I'm all about like, what is a good life for a woman look like? Because I have a daughter and even for my sons, I want them to be in relationships where their spouses and their girlfriends are like empowered to live the lives they want and not be bogged down. My generation, we were bogged down by minutiae. We got killed by it. Yeah. There was no remote work in my day. There was no like, oh, I went like four day flex. There was none of that. And it killed entire generations of moms got pushed out of the workforce. And it was very intentional, right? Like one story that you told that you'll you should clarify the details of that I just love and I learned so much from is advertisers for mainstream television make more money selling on TV shows that are siloed off to specific people, right? Like making sure that an ad is placed for the boy that watches sports that is not watching what the mom is watching on the cooking show, basically separating people out so families don't watch TV together. It's all very intentional to make money. It wasn't like this cultural revolution in America. Like it was it was choreographed. Yeah. And when you're watching something alone or you're living alone or whatever, you're more vulnerable to buy nonsense, to buy shit. Yeah. Just to put it bluntly. When you're alone, when you're in a family unit, you're not thinking, let me go online shopping. Right. You're not thinking, let me have one more drink. Yeah. You know, you're not thinking any of those things. But when you're alone, that's when all those feelings are heightened and companies profit from it. I tell her all the time. I go, you should watch out because you think you're getting bored. But what that whole circumstance has been created for you. Zoya, I have a quick question. What is the most valuable financial lesson you have learned from your mom, either directly or indirectly? Oh, directly. I learned how to sell. OK. So in my senior year of college, I had just finished multiple tech internships. I had worked at Apple. I had worked at this Y Combinator startup. up like I had spent my undergrad learning everything I could learn about computer science because I was in the heart of Silicon Valley that was so important to me and I felt okay computer science and classics and classics don't forget that's my girl that's what she did you can forget it nobody cares about the classes she's so happy I'm actually so happy you don't even understand because all the business podcasts never care about classics but I swear it's because of classics that I can sit on these podcasts and make sense yeah anyways in my senior year of college in the very beginning, I was really lost. I was like these technology startups that I was a part of, I didn't feel like I identified with them. I didn't think my talents were being used in the correct way. And her memoir, This American Woman, which is a New York Times bestseller now, was coming out. And the publishing team told her, you need to hire somebody to basically take on this entire pre-order campaign. For people who aren't familiar, pre-order campaigns determine whether you make bestseller lists. They also determine whether or not your book is even stocked in bookstores. It's all those sales before. That's why when an author is like pleading you to pre-order, that is why. It's not because they just want orders before. It's like very much a process. She told me, you should take on this pre-order campaign process. And in the process, you'll learn how to sell. This is a skill you use for life, regardless of whether or not you join me full time. And for six months, I learned everything that you could possibly learn about learning how to sell online. We were doing live streams where we were selling a book a minute. We were going to every live comedy show and being like, if you buy two books, I'll give you a sweatshirt that's only available at the show. I learned about scarcity. I learned about adding value to as many people as possible. And more than that, I learned that in order to understand the value of money, you need to know how to sell. And I think that is the skill that so many young girls aren't taught because they're afraid of talking about money and numbers and deal making. But it's the reason why men get ahead. Yeah. What about your dad? What's a piece of financial advice that you may have learned from him? Buy expensive things. And what's that quote that's like? That's my friend's quote, but okay, you can attribute it to your dad. Can you tell me? Yes, as per usual, the men get all the credit. I'm too poor to buy cheap things. I'm too poor to buy cheap things. That is my dad's attitude towards life. He always raised the bar, even more than her, about what we could afford. We always shot above our bracket in terms of the apartment we bought in terms of clothes that we buy And it was something that I learned from a very early age that it better to actually invest really well into pieces that you love whether that clothes food workout classes things of that kind, and use them as valuable. Sardo's making such a face right now. I mean, he's a princess. He loves his Laura Piana, but he buys one for the entire year, and he wears it everywhere. He has a little bit of a European attitude towards fashion and life. He wants to look nice and have nice things. So the two of them will walk over to Butterfield, which is the most expensive grocery store. And like somehow it's, I don't know, 50 bucks and there's two cases of empty berries. Yeah. Coming back to the berries. Okay, we'll talk about the berries more. But like, for example, I'm wearing these earrings, these two-tone earrings. I bought these for myself after the pre-order campaign was very successful. And I wear them every day. And they were really expensive, but I don't plan on taking them off pretty much ever. Yeah. Yeah. Good. invest in things that'll last you through the test of time yeah well within reason because i have a feeling that these are gonna go at some point yeah um so now i have kind of a contentious question love it zarna do you want zoya to marry a rich man um no no okay yeah because the criteria is not rich okay the criteria is i myself didn't look for a rich man my entire dating my own matchmaking and dating story is out there. It's viral. You can look it up. I want her to marry a very smart and ambitious man. The idea is not to bypass the work. I want her to live a fulfilling life where she is part of building something with somebody. So they should get rich together. In fact, in some way, and this is a little bit of a hot take, in some ways, I'm a little prejudiced against rich people. Talk to me about that. Because I feel like they don't have the fire. If you have it early in life and you were just given it. No hunger. There's no hunger. And life has many twists and turns. Like you might not be rich forever. You need to know how to survive the ups and downs of life. That would make me nervous. If she brought home a guy who was very rich from birth, I would be nervous. I would be like the first hit and this guy is going to be out. No, she really means that. Like I actually am working with a matchmaker. Like I'm fully. Are you? Yes. It's not your mom. It's not my mom. I mean, she's a terrible matchmaker. She has other talents. I hired the matchmaker. She did. She did. And I'm very comfortable and open saying that. And he has brought her genuinely like Bollywood actors who are extremely famous and royalty, like genuinely for people who might be interested in going on a date with me. And she has rejected every single one. Every single one. It's not because as women, we have to protect ourselves. I've learned. I've been married 26 years. you have to pair up with somebody who can withstand life. And just money alone is not sufficient. It's necessary. It's not sufficient. You can earn the money. If somebody is bright, somebody is ambitious, you'll earn the money with them. She's smart enough. You're smart enough. I figured it out at 45 how to earn money. That can be done. But you cannot give somebody drive. You cannot give somebody that wherewithal that you need. You know, I don't want a life for her where she's beholden to somebody's aging parents because they have no way to live. Right. And there's a lot of people like that in New York. I mean, my kids went to private school for many years. 80% of our private school classmates, the tuitions was paid by the grandparents. And if the grandparents decided to pull that string, they could no longer afford it. I don't want that life for my kid. I don't care how fancy it looks on the outside. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So money is critical. It is fundamental, but it's got to be yours. You got to be able to claim it. You got to be able to say that I did this and I deserve it and it is mine. Wow. Money has to be your power. Money has to be your power. And the only way it has to be it is your power is if it's yours. There's no other way. There's no way to bypass the hard work. Totally. And honestly, if you accept that and embrace it, the journey of building it is actually fun. Yeah. We love what we do. Love. And we love building what we're building. Like, we're not looking for an easy solution ever. Yeah. Ask anybody who's worked with us. We take the long road, the hardest road always. We start small and we build from there always, too. Yeah, and it's fun, you know, and it's ours. Like, in Hindi, there's a saying, it's like, It means the person who holds the bat, only he gets to bat. It's a cricket quote. That nobody else gets a say in how you use that bat. Oh, I love that. She has, she's very famous. She writes a column every Monday of like business wisdom and these quotes and her analysis of them. And there are people who only follow her on Instagram for that Monday motivation. I love quotes. So I search for quotes all over the world and I keep them in my arsenal. But I think they're very helpful. So rich is not what we're looking for. Right. Okay. Not in that way. I love that it's not what we're looking for. Right? But like, Vivian, I'm like, okay, you know, my dating life, question mark, mine, not ours, right? Right, right, right. But somehow it's become ours. Ours. It's a team project. But honestly, my hot take is you should introduce whoever you're serious about to your parents as soon as possible. Why? I think your parents have a really good gauge over whether or not somebody, like, gut instinct is worth pursuing or not. I don't think it has to be this serious thing. People make meeting the parents way too serious in America. It's like, oh, my God. It's like this bachelor moment, the season semi finale. The hometowns. The hometowns. I mean, I think that's ridiculous. It's your parents. They should have a say in whether or not this person feels like they could fit the vibe of the family. And so I actually introduce most people that I'm like considering seriously to my mom specifically pretty quickly, but not for a very long time. I just have them talk for like 30 minutes and just see. I'm like, what's your gut check on this? 30 minutes is enough to have them pull up their tax return on their phone. Okay, perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. We're looking at the tax return. Amazing. She's like, what is your FICO score? But that's a good indicator. That's a great, it is a good one. I love that. Are you, you know, a credit worthy person? You are clearly in finance and I'm obsessed. Yeah, of course. So I want to, you know, kind of take a turn. We're going to pivot to a little bit of a serious conversation. Yeah. And I do want to address the elephant in the room. Please. Zarna, you recently performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Yes. Which was pretty contentious. Yeah. I want to just have a conversation. And this is not a lecture. This is not anything. No, no. But it can be also. No problem. But I want to have a conversation of like, how do you make these business decisions? What compelled you to do it? And would you do it again? Yeah. I would do it again. It was a business decision. And in that case, in the case of Riyadh, it was also a little bit of an emotional decision. Yeah. I have two comedy specials. And both those specials were number one in the Middle East for a long time. because those women have never seen anybody who looks like me do what I do. Yeah. I lived in New York 25 years and I didn't know what standup comedy was. Yeah. My all-American kid introduced me to it. Yeah. But I, through my work, have changed lives. I, through my work, have empowered women to say what's on their mind or to laugh about what's on other people's mind around them, to not take life so seriously. I'm very proud of what I do. We are very proud of what we've built. so in the case of Riyadh in particular uh I was very conscious that those women who are texting me DMing me every day come here we want to watch you with our daughters we want to watch you live we want to see what you do I couldn't turn my back on them honestly people think it was the money and the money was good but it wasn't life-changing just so it's clear not for anybody because I work with the agents that rep everybody. The money was good, but everybody on that lineup would make that money anyway. Like this is the superstar lineup. Like it's not like if I didn't go there, like how am I going to pay my bills? It's not like that. Like I could have done three shows in New Jersey, we would have made the money. So it's not like we all just went running for the money. There's that. Two, I don't take a moral position on it because there are every government in the world, including America, is doing things that I don't necessarily agree with. To be honest with you, I try to stay out of the politics of it. I'm more concerned with what can I do for the women in that region? Because I truly, especially in the Middle East, I truly believe that in the end, the solution is going to emerge from the women. That the more those women are empowered, the more there is hope for peace, for stability, for progress for everybody. Yeah. And I want whatever little I can do to move that needle. I'm happy to do. Now, did I get paid? Of course I got paid. Yes. And I have. As you should, by the way. And I have offered no apologies for it. And by the way, people who think they would never like they're all doing business. If you live in America, you're doing business with Saudi Arabia. If you're gassing up your car, you're doing business. If you're riding Uber, the management company that reps me is partially owned by the Saudi royal family. You just don't know about it. Right. So it's a lot of noise about nothing as far as I'm concerned. And I had a very I went in with a very clear mind. We are very clear about what we do. Are we running a business or is this a hobby? Right. That's the first thing. As a business decision, did it make sense to go? Yes. OK, now. So what are the issues? And once we were like we made our piece with it, there was nothing more. And then also, what's the most diverse set of people possible that we can contribute value to? Right. Like she was one of three female comedians out of 50 comedians that were invited. It was a very strict list. It's not that there aren't amazing female comics. It's that her set is clean. It's relatable. And it's something that that audience doesn't hear ever. And so I was really inspired, honestly, by her decision to go. I mean, I think that's probably one of the top five most inspiring things I've seen her do. It's not easy. It's not easy for her to also speak boldly and unapologetically on a stage like that. It's unfathomable that people can't even appreciate the actual American protest that she was bringing through her words on that stage. That's what it was. Bringing freedom of speech to people who've never seen anything like it. Half the people who made it controversial here between you and me were comics who weren't invited. or who are so far into the progressive liberal side of things that there's just no room to talk to them or negotiate with them. Half of them are repped by a company that is owned by a Saudi royal family. And they just either don't know it or choose to look away. And from like a business point of view as well, I really we respect all the comics that have, you know, said anything about this event, good or bad. But anyone who spoke on this event in a negative way, in my opinion, was profiting off of the off of the craziness and the engagement for themselves as well. They turned it into a press tour. Why I wouldn't go. Right. How stupid is that? Like we decline things every day. We don't have time to talk about it. So I just I think it's important to highlight the irony and that in that this event, people who weren't even a part of it were getting benefit from it monetarily as well. And so people saying, I'm not going to go. You weren't invited. And even if you were, let's say, like, I think on average, we probably turn down five things a day. Right. Different things for different reasons. We don't have time to talk about it. We really don't. And everybody, we assume that everybody is smart enough to make their own decisions. And that's it. But I personally am very proud that I went. I think I showed Saudi women a new side of what women can be. And even if that's a start, maybe it's the smallest germ, a start of a revolution in their minds, maybe in their women hangouts. Maybe for the first time they went home and started telling jokes about their mother-in-laws. You know, everything starts somewhere. Yeah. Our goal is to make families laugh all over the world, no matter what demographic you're in. that is our responsibility and that's our prerogative and priority first so yeah yeah and they paid well i just i have to laugh because you're such a comedian to just follow it up with that and they paid well like i mean i mean i'm not apologizing for it but and by the way people who came there were some comics who came reluctantly they were blown away i was not i've been to Asia and Middle East enough to know that it's not all what you see on TV here. Because if you watch, if you have your view of Middle East just based on news in America, you don't know what you're talking about, honestly. But the comics who were a little reluctant were absolutely flabbergasted with the advancement. It just, you land in the airport and the level of advancement, technology, you just don't expect it. Totally. And, you know, I think that they've gone back with their eyes open. Yeah. I appreciate that. And I appreciate the candor. I think we should continue this candid conversation. Typically, in many Asian families, Indian families, you get a Panera, you pick one doctor, lawyer, engineer, not lawyer, not lawyer. You have famously said that you were not supportive of Zoya studying classics, of wanting to write, of doing all these things. What changed your mind to realize that she was the best person to rep you I didn want her to study classics because the degree is very expensive The Stanford I was like you want to study classics just stay at home and study classics Go to the local like, you don't go there for a half a million dollar degree and all this life experience and not get the one thing it's known for. Do you know what I mean? Like, keep it in your back pocket. If you want that whole experience, you got to do it. Listen, we're Asian. I made a movie. My director was a cancer surgeon on the side. He is. A Harvard cancer surgeon. That's so funny. Because that's how we wrote. And he still practices. His mother, he's a grown man. He's afraid of his mom, of course. His mother still won't let him quit his medical practice. Three months of the year, he has to stop the Hollywood thing and go practice in a hospital because she's like, I don't trust the Hollywood thing. So I get it that, you know, the reason she's working with me is because she's the best at it. She's an execution beast. Honestly, between you and me, I'm not going to look this way. My business, I'm so serious about it that if I didn't think she had it in me, I would encourage her to get a tech job. I would be like, go hide behind three levels of engineers, you know, L1, L2, A, B, C, D, whatever they create. There's lots of room to hide in big companies. Go enjoy the sushi bar and whatever else they do. The ping pong table. Whatever. Like, you know, there's a lot of fluff attached to all that stuff. I don't have it. I'm a small business. My team is small and mighty. We are ninjas. We get things done. We show profitability. I'm known in the business as somebody who makes money for everybody that collaborates with them. That is my reputation. I could not have her work with me and jeopardize my business just because she has nothing to do. By running the New York Times campaign, she proved that she knows what she's doing. I gave her the assignment and I never looked at it again. I said, get it done. And like literally, get it done. Here's the budget, like for whatever little tools that she needed. I never involved myself. She took it on head on. And in fact, we had one bump along the way. I mean, yeah, I was going to say I also really had to earn it. There were moments. There was no Nepo baby. I mean, I honestly like envy the Nepo baby thing because I, you know, being her daughter, a lot of people think that it's just like, oh, you have a famous parent. But I I really struggled to, like, figure out, especially this this campaign, like they're really early into the campaign. I remember I it had been like a month in and I had shown no numbers. There were no preorder numbers. There was no views. There was no work to speak for all the ideas that I had about how to sell the book. And she looked at me and she said, Zoya, I'm going to give this job to someone else. I'm going to give not only this job to someone else, but I'm going to give what this journey can teach you to someone else because you don't deserve it. And I was so devastated. I really had to put our personal relationship aside in order to actually hear what she was saying. But the very next day, I like hit the ground running. I was like, I don't care what it takes. I'll hold a sign in the middle of my college campus that literally says three books equals one sweatshirt if that's what's going to get the job done. And that is what got the job done. So I think one thing that I think is really interesting is a lot of people who are trying to learn how to make money out of college. They like can't figure it out. It's really stressful. People don't want to take a leap. But if you can deliver somebody a process from zero to 100 of XYZ thing will get done, all the people involved will get a win. I'm going to deliver value in all of these different ways. You will make money and you will be a power player to whoever you're serving. Right. And I now I have job offers out the wazoo. I mean, like every single person that I worked with wants to hire me. I've been like, I've gotten a pre-order campaign job offer from I think every notable author right now in the last six months. And I earned that because people saw this girl sold 10,000 pre-orders. That's over $300,000 worth of pre-order revenue of something that didn't even exist yet. Yeah, you'll see. Pre-order is tricky because you're selling something that doesn't exist. And people don't read anymore. So you have to incentivize people to see the value in a product that they're probably not even going to consume. But I want to add, because a lot of women watch your podcast, listen to your podcast, in the early days of the pre-order campaign, because she's in Silicon Valley, she's surrounded by tech founders. Everybody is chasing the unicorn, right? There were friends who would say to her, why are you doing such low vibration work? Oh, yeah. low vibration work is crazy low status people would constantly say zoya you worked at apple you go to stanford you you know you have all these vc connections like why are you not just going down this path of raising millions of dollars and doing an ai startup and applying it to the comedy industry very like big words that are very hollow and i it took me so long It took me seeing what sales was doing for my confidence, honestly, as a human being. Like every time I sold a preorder, I became a better person. Honestly, like genuinely, I did. And we were very clear. I remember telling her, I'm like, I don't have room for shiny pennies in my business. You got to mean something. You got to bring something to the table. And life is about sales. Business is about sales. The whole game is sales. It doesn't even matter what you're selling. Yeah, whatever this low vibration thing is, I don't know what goes on in Silicon Valley, because I feel like now we're at an age where every kid is waking up thinking, I'm not an AI billionaire yet. The AI rocket hasn't hit me yet. Like, relax, people just give somebody value. And the reason we're bringing that up also is because entrepreneurship has become conflated with that. Yeah. Entrepreneurship is very different than that. Entrepreneurship to me is distinctly creating ways of making money for some service or product that is adding something different or is making something better. That's it. That's all it is. And I, you know, we have a lot of criticism of all that, but I'm glad I didn't listen to all that kind of. But she was almost fired. I was. I genuinely was. You got performance improvement plan by your mom. No, yeah. I mean, can you imagine what she's like as a boss? You've seen her on stage. You've seen her in this podcast. Can you imagine the kind of threat? I mean, it was serious. She has high demands because she brings a lot to the table herself, and you want someone to match that energy. And people rise to the expectations set to that. That's right. So we are running out of time, but I want to ask one question to each of you. It's the same question. What is your biggest money regret and why? it's gonna be a hard take okay my biggest money regret is not taking control of my own financial destiny earlier in life i was a stay-at-home mom for many years and my husband is a wall street professional a very nice guy and very trustworthy so it's not that but every single woman should take control of her financial destiny and i learned it the hard way because when uh bad times hit which they did. My husband lost his job during COVID. He got completely frazzled. And I was at ground zero. Right. I had to like wake up and build from ground zero overnight. And it was a mistake. What was I thinking for the 15 years before? Right. Don't ever put yourself in that situation. Ever. Every woman, no matter what your circumstance, no matter who you marry, no matter who you date, you must have your own money and you must have your own financial plan for yourself and also for your family. I love that. That is an incredible piece of advice. Using my college investment in a way that I don't think was actually accurate and right for my purposes. I think a lot of people feel all sorts of ways when they graduate college, like I could have done this and I could have done that. And no matter what you're doing, if you're going to a private university, someone is proportionally making up a $500,000 investment plus housing, plus everything else on your behalf or for you are paying it for yourself. I regret not working full time as soon as possible in college. I think every college student should have a full time job and treat college like a part time job and not treat their classes like they're so important, should use the environment to meet as many people as possible. I'm glad I got a hard skill. Why is your mom laughing? Because she she I think she'll probably disagree with me here. But the work experience that I got in those last two years of my undergrad were so much more valuable to me and actually made me a better student because I was so like learning how to time manage like class with my full time job with, you know, socializing. And I think students should learn that as soon as possible and should not get caught up in getting more degrees. These colleges are so unethical in that way because they sell this promise of if you get this master's degree, you'll get a higher paying AI job. And it's not true. And it's not true. They're stealing time from you. That's time that you could be exploring and figuring things out and working for somebody or building something of your own. And I have a real gripe with higher education. And I really think that I could have used my investment a little bit differently. I think that's wise, too. Like, be conscious of why you are going to college and what it's for and what you're trying to get out of it. Yeah. Can I just leave, give you one piece of advice to your people? Because it's something your audience in particular and my daughter, you know, a lot of men and women of this age, 20s, 30s, they're, like, caught up in dating and then also the job and should I take a job? Like now for women, I tell my daughter, just if you like somebody and you want to get married, get married and get divorced if it needs to be that way. Really? You don't need to be thinking of it as a lifetime commitment. That has not served women either. OK. Because the men get in and out of marriages, as we've seen. It's the women who are like, but I thought we were going to get old together. And then they make all these financial mistakes. They give up their financial future because they're trying to appease the guy or worse yet, support him. which he might just turn around and say I didn't even ask for it which happens today all the time now I tell my daughter I tell all the women don't take marriage so it's not life or death like if you make a mistake you'll get out of it in fact maybe make that mistake early get out get it out of your system so you can focus on building your financial future because we are all as I'm aging I'm 50 I have so many friends women who are in horrible situations now because they trusted their partners, they trusted their spouses. Now they're divorced or worse things have happened, you know, they're widowed or whatever. And now they have nothing. They're suddenly in America with no means to support themselves, or the money they thought was going to last them a lifetime is not going to last them five years. And it's very, very shocking and jarring. So I tell her, I tell everybody who's watching and listening, and it's a real hot take, I get trolled for it all the time, I don't care. But my job is to empower women into living lives that they own their destinies of. And that is not going to happen without your own money. It's just not. I don't think that's a hot take. I think that's the right take. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, for sharing our laughs. I completely understand why you are just as charismatic and fun and bubbly in person. What's next for the both of you? And where can everybody listening and watching find you um uh at zarnagarg family podcast if we don't blow up yeah if we don't fight our way into an explosion we fight on the internet about money politics sex everything um you could possibly fight with your family about we put it all on the internet that's our little thing but you can also find me at zoyagarg underscore pretty much everywhere and and i'm at zarnagarg everywhere and you know be part of this world it's social media be social and please direct message us what you disagree about us with us and on this podcast because i live for that i live for the debate i loved i am a debater over dm i respond to every single dm all the time zoya that's crazy i know you want to know you want to know okay this is a secret tip. You want to know where you can sell the most product? Instagram DM. DMs are customer service tickets now. That is literally a customer. So if you're talking to somebody and you send them a link and you create a compelling enough reason, I was on Instagram DM four hours a day every single day for six months for this pre-order process, being like, you should consider buying this book for this reason, for this business, for this human being. And it worked. Highest conversion tool. Also, it's one of the best ways to reach very famous people. People don't know that because very famous people usually have a wall of agents and managers around them whose only job is to keep you away. But they don't hand over their Instagram accounts easily because they're trying to keep it that private. They don't want people in their DMs. So there is a way to get through to very famous people. If you're trying, Instagram DMs is one of the last things they're going to hand over to a rep. Totally. Yeah. Wow. And on that note, thank you guys so much for joining me. This was so much fun. Thank you. Thank you for having us. This was so fun. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcast at yourrichbff.com. Follow Net Worth and Chill Pod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news. and you can follow me at YourRichBFF for even more financial know-how. See you next week. Bye!